Ron (R presidential candidate Rep) Paul squares off with the Union Leader over foreign policy

[Omaha Steve]

Source: USA Today

Having his views described as "unrealistic and dangerous" in an editorial by the New Hampshire Union Leader didn't sit well with Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul.

So today, the Texas congressman who comes at things from a Libertarian point of view, responded with his own opinion piece in the newspaper.

"If I understand the editors' concerns," Paul writes, "I have not been accused of deviating from the Founders' logic; if anything I have been accused of adhering to it too strictly. The question, therefore, before readers -- and soon voters -- is the same question I have asked for almost 20 years in Congress: by what superior wisdom have we now declared Jefferson, Washington, and Madison to be 'unrealistic and dangerous'? Why do we insist on throwing away their most considered warnings?"

The crux of the Union Leader's argument was this:

Paul's repeated insistence that "There would be no risk of somebody invading us" is just what the isolationist Republicans of the 1930s believed -- right up until Pearl Harbor. Paul's idea that we can maintain peace by halting our projection of military strength has been proven wrong by history. But Rep. Paul is not about to let historical reality get in the way of his ideologically pure position.

Read more: http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2007/10/ron-paul-square.html

[Purveyor]

1. There is much I can like in what Ron Paul stands for yet there is much I can disagree with.

Interesting man, nonetheless...

[cali]

8. He's completely repugnant and his foreign policy largely sucks

as well as his domestic policies. No U.N., unfettered trade, just to start with. Oh, yeah. Racist comments. Blech.

[AnneD]

2. I've always said....

he is a nut....but he's our nut (lovingly). The thing I like about Ron Paul is that, even though he has his principles and his own ideas...he'll listen to you, really listen. He has changed his mind on a few things when a good argument was presented to him. He firmly believes in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. That's why we keep voting him to Congress. He is a sincere and likable man.

[ananda]

3. hmm..

I guess that means that me-firsters and white supremacists
can be sincere and likable.

Puke.

[Andy Canuck]

4. I agree wholeheartedly with Ron Paul on foreign polict but

domestic policy would leave (more) people starving in the streets. It is always interesting when people look to establish greater relationships with strangers and neglect the needs of their neighbours.

[ozone_man]

5. is it more important to end the Iraq war

than to be prochoice for a candiadte? Is it more important to end outsourcing and NAFTA then to be a social liberal? Or abolish the FED as Paul would like to do?

It makes me ask these questions when we're on our way towards another eight years of this war. What should our priorities should be? I think Kucinich has most of these qualities, if only he would make it into the general election. If it comes down to Ron Paul vs. Hillary Clinton, I really don't how I would vote. Are a milllion Iraquis lives worth anything? Hillary Clinton and the other Democrats who voted to give war powers to Bush don't seem to think so, and I won't support that.

[mopinko]

6. whose history would that be, then?

start telling all the history of our intervention in the world, and i think it would be pretty hard to argue with mr paul.

[razors edge]

7. The Japanese invaded the United States?

I must have missed that, I thought they flew over and dropped a lot of bombs on the bases we have in Hawaii, one of which I served on for three years, Kaneohe Bay, the first American casualties on December 7, 1941.

They also occupied an uninhabited island or two in Alaska, and got their asses kicked out later, not what I would call an invasion of the US by any means.

As I recall they were able to launch a submarine attack on a California amusement park with no casualties, and no I am not talking about the movie 1941, and the only other attack on our main land consisted of a balloon with timed explosives that did kill a few civilians.

Ron Paul-1, union leader-0.


Edit: If memory serves, the Japanese Sub commander had visited the amusement park some years earlier and fallen into some thorny bushes, some Americans laughed at him and he never quite got over it.

[ProudDad]

9. And the Japanese were goaded into it

it was convenient at the time to have a "Pearl Harbor" moment in order to kick the economy into high gear building war toys and finally put an end to the Great Depression...

[cali]

10. Could you possibly be any more simplistic? n/t

[tkmorris]

11. Well, it's pretty simplistic but there is something to it

There were elements in our government at the time which felt that entering the war would be a good idea, and were searching for ways to make that happen. I think by late 1941 both Japan and the US knew that confrontation was inevitable. Attacking Pearl Harbor was actually the smartest thing Japan could have done at the time, from an objective viewpoint. Unfortunately for them the attack was not as successful as they'd hoped and they were unable to press whatever immediate advantage it gave them.

[cali]

12. Yes, of course there's something to it,

but the post I responded to reduced Pearl Harbor and the complex reasons behind the U.S. entering WWII to an argument that the U.S. was at fault totally for Pearl Harbor, and that the reason the U.S. entered that war was solely for financial reasons.

[razors edge]

13. Has there been a war

in the last two hundred years that was not solely for financial reasons?